this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Warfare’s Climate Emissions Are Huge but Uncounted (www.scientificamerican.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

That got me interested on fuel economy. According to this webpage, a M1A2 has a gas tank size of 1907 l (505 gal) and a cruising range of 426 km (265 miles).

That would make 448 l/100km (0.52 MPG). Wow.

The site also says

A tank will need approximately 300 gallons every eight hours; this will vary depending on mission, terrain, and weather. (1364 l)

0.6 miles per gallon.

60 gallons per hour when traveling cross-country (263 l)

30+ gallons per hour while operating at a tactical ideal (136+ l)

10 gallons basic idle (45 l)

A mine plow will increase the fuel consummation rate of a tank by 25 percent

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

So that suggests, over 4 tons CO2 per tank-refill. Many of those things don't get to roll very far (except by train, ship), but there's still over 120 tons embodied CO2 just from producing the (mainly) steel. Also the energy in the shells. I guess military planes, ships, missiles contribute more than tanks. Should also consider albedo effects such as smoke drifting over arctic snow.
But maybe this is all dwarfed by the implied emissions of reconstruction later, also missed opportunities for cooperation on global mitigation efforts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Probably you are right with the latter. A cement brick house easily has 100 tons CO². And in war, whole cities get destroyed. Plus destruction of enemy energy infrastructure, like oil fields, if existant.

Kind of sad now, when I think about it. Looks like we rather destroy the enemy with us, than having somebody we don't like rise above us.